I am a “Hard Core”, “Card Carrying” TRAP SHOOTER, With a heavy/bad powder Jones. my Question is this: I need to know the relationship, in descending or ascending order between the Shotgun primers 209 & 209-A. That is the Federal 209 & 209-A, Winchester 209, Remington 209, CCI 209, Cheddite 209. etc. I have a real interest in the CHEDDITE 209. The reason for this interest is to “FINE TUNE” My loads for all the Trap games. Can you help??

Thanks

Art

Dear Art,

I’m not so sure that this primer brisance stuff is so clear cut that you can just draw up a list of primer strengths and then apply it to everything. Rooting through my Technoidal library of mostly useless, nearly useless and totally useless factoids, I came up with an interesting primer bit from the hardcover Hodgdon Powder Shotshell Manual (1996) page 19. It shows quite clearly that primer brisance (strength) can change with the load. Here are some Hodgdon numbers. The only thing changed in the two shot weight loads is the primer.

Note that as the payload weight changes, the effect of different primers changes. It is not consistent. WinAATP is the “hottest” primer with a 1-1/8 oz load, but only ranks 5th when the load is reduced to 7/8 oz.

Like so much else in shotgunning, it’s hard to be precise about some things. It’s particularly hard to isolate changes to the shell and barrel. So often one change depends on another. If you really want to know about Cheddite, I would contact the Cheddite people and ask them directly. Cheddite may tell you that their primers load interchangeably with “X” brand primers. The problems is, as you can see from the Hodgdon data, NO primer is really consistent once you start fooling around with the other components of the load. When you talk to Cheddite, get a list of their recommended reloading data and stick with that. They’ve done the work. You get the benefit of it. Don’t ask me. As with so much else in life, I don’t have a clue.

Best regards,

Bruce Buck
The Technoid writing for Shotgun Report, LLC
(Often in error. Never in doubt.)